Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Achilleas Petrakos (Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim: On the Holodeck again - Bajor

Posted by Ensign Iyun Riani (Scientist) in Side Sim: On the Holodeck again - Bajor

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Achilleas Petrakos (Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim: On the Holodeck again - Bajor
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Achilleas looked thoughtful as he sampled what Ria was eating, “This kind of reminds me of a time when my Grandfather took the boys and Grandmother out to sea fishing. The girls were busy helping momma, so it was up to us to bring in dinner for the next few days. We could’ve bought or replicated ourselves some food but my grandparents insisted we get the fish ourselves. During a particularly calm moment on the sea with no fish biting, Grandma rolled out a big blanket on the deck and called us all to supper. Even Grandpa left the wheelhouse to join the sup. There were all sorts of foods she prepared very early that morning and a jar of olives a person,”

Riani listened in silence, the hint of a soft, if slightly sad smile tugging at the corners of her eyes and lips.

He stopped a moment to look wistfully for a moment before he reached into a pocket and pulled out a jar of olives. “I’m not sure if these will go well with the food you made but I was saving these for a special occasion and this is special to me. My Grandma canned this jar a little over a year ago.”

He then popped the jar open and ate an olive before offering the jar to Ria.

CSO Petrakos

“That’s the good thing about these,” Ria said softly, gesturing at the food between them, “Pretty much everything goes with it. At least as far as I have tried.” That said, she reached for an olive herself and popped it into her mouth. Falling silent once again, her gaze became slightly unfocused as she looked towards the house.

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

“Tell me about a typical day in this house.” Achilleas said quietly, “What’s going on when you first get up?”

He continued to eat the delicious food while Ria told her story. He could definitely empathize with her feelings right now.

CSO Petrakos

Riani blinked a couple of times, bringing her focus back to the here and now, yet she still remained silent for a couple of moments. Eventually she started softly, “Sona is always the first to wake up; most days at the crack of dawn. She’s a bundle of pure energy. If we get lucky, she won’t wake the rest of us. But we seldom are.” While she’d been home for her brief vacation between graduation and her placement on the Ogawa, Ria had been annoyed with her youngest sister at times. Right now, she felt like she’d give almost everything to be woken up by the girl every morning in her usually very energetic (and noisy) way. “We all have our chores throughout the day. Some are always the same, others change. Like setting the table or doing the dishes. Breakfast is often the only meal we all have together. And then it’s work or school and extra curricula activities.” Her expression was wistful and the longing in her voice and on her face were probably fairly easy to read. It had been four years since she’d moved out, and yet she still spoke of it as if it had been yesterday. Sure, she had been home for every vacation, yet generally that was different than still living at home. Though apparently for that wasn’t the case.

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

Achilleas nodded in understanding. He reached for another flaky roll and cut it before he added a spread to it. He took a bite while he contemplated a moment then began to talk, “The order of my family’s day was almost the reverse. Breakfast was a time to scrounge what you could and get out the door. Greece tends to be very warm and it’s best to do the chores as early as you can then get to the stuff you can do in the shade or indoors. Such as physics finals or ethics work. Since scientists must be ethical and all.” He chuckled there. “Dinner was required to attend. Even if you had a date or liked a girl, boys in the cases of my sisters except for Delphine, then you had to bring them to our family dinner. Granted you could skip a dinner with them after, but only if they had met them first. It was kind of a check to see whether or not the skipping of dinner was worth not being with family. I remember when my sister Delphine had brought a girl home for the first time haha. As my family is rather old fashioned, when it was brought up that she would be missing dinner with us three days later the whole family got very quiet, until my Grandmother stood up, looked my sister in the eye, and told her that she had her blessing. That pretty much dispelled the awkwardness, well except for how to tease a girl about liking another girl without being mean or rude about it, but she had seen how everyone else got teased over it so I think she took it pretty well. I of course didn’t really understand the implications at the time until she had brought her… fourth or fifth girl home to get the date blessing. Being the youngest makes you miss a lot of context.”

CSO Petrakos

With her head tilted ever so slightly to the left, Ria listened closely. It was fascinating how similar and yet different families and family dynamics were. “A date blessing,” she mused while slightly sifting her sitting position so that she was no longer kneeling but sitting with her legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle. “My parents never insisted on giving their blessing. Of course they’d like to get to know the person either of us likes, but at our own time.” Letting herself fall backwards, she stared at the blue, almost cloudless sky for a while before she continued, “My mother wrote me that Mijiam brought her first boyfriend home a few days ago and we think Zairr likes someone, but we don’t know for certain and while Mijiam is speculating who it might be…” She let her voice trail off and closed her eyes for a moment, her thoughts lingering on her family, yet they also kept wandering towards her own love life so far and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks, turning them rather pink.

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

“And what of you? Does your mother wonder what love holds for you now that you’re in Starfleet?” Achilleas inquired after finishing his roll. “My own family was merciless in their desire to know if or when I would find someone. After seeing my ten siblings all struggle to find their own happiness with a partner of some kind or another, I’m just happy to find my happiness with science. I’m not going to be in a rush as I’ve got time. If it happens it’ll happen but I’m not going to be desperate to find something.”

CSO Petrakos

Feeling herself turn even redder, Ria hesitated for a bit before answering somewhat evasively, “They probably, but they know I’d tell them, so they don’t ask,” before falling silent once again. Reaching for the end of her long braid, she started fiddling with it again. It was a nervous habit and she knew it annoyed some people, yet she found it helped her think and steady her nerves at times. Why she was so nervous, she wasn’t sure. Eventually she continued, “For my parents, it has never been important that I or any of my siblings, find someone to spend our lives with or even start a family. All they want is for us to be happy and they know that that doesn’t include starting your own family for everyone. They didn’t even want to have children when they became a couple and then got married.”

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist

Achilleas set his plate to the side and looked over at Ria. She seemed comfortable so he mimicked her and laid back on the blanket and looked at the sky. “Being the youngest had a benefit in not being pushed to continue the family line. They’d like me to get married and have a kid I’m sure, but it wasn’t anything they’ve pushed me on. My older siblings were another matter altogether. My two oldest brothers have been married and had seven children between them already. My nieces and nephews are just adorable. Wait, I’m getting off topic. So I’m blessed to be born last is what I’m getting at.”

CSO Petrakos

Riani nodded silently. She found it hard to imagine what it must be like if it was important for one’s parents that the family line was continued. “It’s so different from my life,” she whispered. “My parents would never push any of us to have children.” Tilting her head backwards so that she could see the hills behind her, she continued even more softly, “If the occupation hadn’t ended neither I nor my siblings would have ever been born. They didn’t want to bring children into a world like that. I was born during the Dominion War, it wasn’t planned at all. I’m not sure if my mother might not have ended the pregnancy if she hadn’t had a few miscarriages before. So there more than understand that not everyone might want children or that the time isn’t always right.”

~Ensign Iyun, Scientist